I cannot believe that it took me this long to get around to reading this. To be honest, I’m entirely unsure how to talk about this book and not sound like a completely unintelligent fool. It was just so fantastic!

I haven’t really read a lot of the Batman graphic novels, or even the original comics. I watched the animated TV series when I was a kid, I’ve seen the Tim Burton movies (and, of course, the Christopher Nolan versions), and a few months ago, I watched the Adam West movie for the first time. I wouldn’t exactly say that I’m a huge fan of Batman, but I do definitely love the idea of the masked hope for a futuristic, corrupt Gotham City.

I’ve heard about the Bone series before, particularly when teachers discuss graphic novels in the classroom and getting reluctant readers (particularly boys) to pick something up and enjoy it. Last semester, the “literacy” courses at my school both read this book, and even the toughest, most anti-reading students loved it!

Sentences tells the story of Percy Carey (aka M.F. Grimm) from his perspective, as he lives in the world of American hip-hop and street crews. It’s a really good look into the mentality behind the people who get involved in that kind of lifestyle, and why they make the choices that they do.

The first experience I had with so-called “comic journalism” was with another of Sacco’s books called Palestine. It was enlightening and funny and easy-to-read, even when discussing a rather difficult subject, and so I hoped that I would find other pieces of work just as good.